Finals Cool Reads

2013's Edge Question
You don't have free will...
Problem solve like Gandalph
Darwin was wrong about dating
What about zombies?
Unfortunate language in gun debate
Theater of Pain-Football

Cool widget to improve your SAT-ACT vocab

Cool Reads New Year Begins!

Year in Photos- Atlantic
Daily Beast Book List
Best Literary Insults
A documentary I can't wait to see...
Why we explore...
Snowfall- The avalanche at Tunnel Creek
Let's be more productive

Review Writing- From NYT's Touch of Evil

Watch all of them. and what were the icons of inspiration.  Glee Review

Current Clever Reviews

From Rich Juwziak's review of Amour

Horror movies make death easy. Lots of people find them hard to watch, of course, but they ultimately make the loss of life a consumable commodity – with the swipe of a machete, the slash of a knife, the plunge of a handful of razors, humans expire. A series of these makes for a fast-moving popcorn picture.
Even the most gratuitous cases are relatively breezy. The pièce de résistance of the bled-dry torture porn genre, the Saw franchise, featured a series of hideously inventive, Rube Goldberg-esque deaths that, per the guiding hand of serial killer Jigsaw, generally took just a minute to carry out (with, say, another minute or so of setup). A great way to take the edge off extremeness is to make it mercifully brief. Mass murders are common in entertainment but not so much in the typical American life – those of us privileged to a peaceful existence can write off an eyeful of carnage with, "It's only a movie."
Michael Haneke's Palme d'Or-winning Amour is not a conventional horror movie, but it is among the most brutal pieces of cinema I have ever experienced. No heads roll, no blood flies, there isn't even a sense of suspense in this French-language film – just an elderly woman who decays before our eyes, while hers slowly drain of life via a performance from Emmanuelle Riva that is among the very best this or any year has offered.

from A.O Scott's review of The Hobbit

In “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s first Middle-earth fantasy novel, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) sets out with the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and a posse of dwarfs to battle a fearsome dragon. [Spoiler alert] they do not kill the dragon, although [spoiler alert] they eventually will, within the next 18 months or so, because [spoiler alert] this “Hobbit,” which is [migraine alert] 170 minutes, is the first installment in [film critic suicide-watch alert] a trilogy.

Let's try our own with the trailer for Pacific Rim.

Cool Reads December 10- Iceland Music

The Spatter Pattern: Does All The Good Television Have To Be So Bloody?
The Best Photos of the Year
Is Santa hurting our kids?
For my reader's of Blink-
Maybe may favorite Icelandic Pianist(Snobbish enough?)- Great music for studying
2nd Favorite Band from Iceland- Female Lead


Book Beast- Book's of the Year

Cool Reads December 1

Can a Jellyfish Unlock the Secret of Immortality?
100 Notable Books of 2012- NYT (of course...)
In Praise of Cliches
How to never lose in tic-tac toe

Poor Guy- H/T Alexis Long




For my Star Wars Geeks
The Cost of Pennies
Feel Good Story

Mash-up of the world most viewed video


Cool Photos- Hello Nightmares- Creepy Dolls
AFP Photos of the year

Review Zingers! Twilight Editition

Apparently Twilight is a muse...

But if you're not a die-hard "Twilight" fan you'll have no clue who's who or who does what. Just know, goth-like vampires are probably bad; hipsters in hoodies are good. Bruce Miller (journal.com) - Breaking Dawn- Part 2
ht-Catherine Serio

That it has taken 5 instalments to tell a story that probably warranted 2, at the very most, matters little. Most Twilight tragics would have happily sat through 10 movies to keep the phenomenon going.-Leigh Paatsch
ht-Hanna Netisingha


Heads pop like Champagne corks in “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2,” the final chapter in the megamillion-dollar series about love, war and franchise immortality. And why not? -Dargis
ht- Alondra Garcia

I have now seen something like 10 hours about these vampires as they progress through immortality, and I'd rather see either version of "Nosferatu" that many times.-Roger Ebert
ht-Abby Ripoli

As Aro, the leader of the Volturi, Michael Sheen is a rare delight, smiling malevolently-- and at one point issuing an insane cackle that's worth the price of admission...It ain't much, but it passes for drama--if by 'drama' you mean a climatic showdown between the powerful, berobed Voturi on the one side, and a ragtag band of the 'good' vampires, now in league with Jacob and his pack of giant CGI werewolves, on the other.-Michael O'Sullivan
ht- Austin Kordik

Endless minutes are devoted to colored contact lenses (to mask her red eyes), an arm-wrestling contest with her vampire brother-in-law (Kellan Lutz), and scenes of Edward and Bella running through the picturesque Pacific Northwest woods on her first hunt, which culminates in an al fresco picnic dinner of venison tartare.-Michael O'Sulliva
ht-Sonya Olsen

From the start, the Twilight film series has struggled with the dearth of external conflict presented in its source material. This isn’t a problem for fans of Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling book series, who can recall every thought and emotion behind the many, many protracted stares exchanged between characters, while those not indoctrinated into Meyer’s world are left to wonder why everyone in the film appears to be in constant gastrointestinal distress- The AV Club
ht-Ali Chica

Watching the Cullens pose and smile in their modernist digs, gathered around the piano with frozen aristocratic languor, grows tedious. But, much like the scene of Jacob (Taylor Lautner), the franchise’s favorite pinup, strolling into the story with visibly erect nipples, this family album serves a conspicuous purpose. It quickly becomes evident that Part 2 is primarily an extended final bow — part victory lap, part farewell tour. Drawing out the inevitable gives fans the chance to linger in a world that has become a passionately beloved cult complete with its own conventions, Web sites (and their inverse, hate shrines, dedicated to loathing the series) and academic tomes (“Interdisciplinary Approaches to Twilight: Studies in Fiction, Media and a Contemporary Cultural Experience”). It’s a fan base that has again also proven the might of the female movie audience.- M Dargis
ht- Sean Young